Much-loved Mallomar returns to cookie fans

HACKENSACK, N.J. — Sad fact: An uncooled Nabisco delivery truck is no kind of place for Mallomars.

Humid heat, dry heat — it doesn't matter what variety of heat. Warm weather of any kind is lethal to the little guys, morphing them from delightful chocolate-coated cookies to something closer to campfire s'mores. Nabisco, maker of the Mallomar, does the merciful thing and halts production from April to September.

This week marks their annual return to supermarket shelves, much to the delight of the masses caught in the Mallomar grapplehold in New York and New Jersey. It is here — for reasons the makers of Mallomar can't quite explain — that 70 percent of the cookie's sales originate.

"I just remember growing up and eating them," said Dolores Butler of Paramus, N.J. "If you grow up and eat them, you probably eat them later" in life.

Standing in an aisle of the ShopRite on Route 4 in Paramus, Robert Becker grabbed a cadmium-yellow box and suffered a guilty moment.

"I could go through boxes of these. It's terrible," he said.

How can they resist, what with 8-foot, end-of-aisle displays in space ordinarily reserved for multipacks of paper towels?

"When they return, some media outlets told me they throw Mallomar parties," said Erin Bondy Lanuti, a spokeswoman for Kraft, parent company of Nabisco.

The Mallomar was developed 89 years ago in a West Hoboken, N.J., bakery. Now Mallomar is one of Nabisco's most popular cookies.

Nabisco doesn't like to say the cookies are merely wrapped in chocolate. They're "enrobed."

The graham base is baked first, and then the marshmallows — Nabisco makes its own — are plopped on top. After the chocolate is poured on, the finished cookie is dumped into a 40-foot-long cooling chamber. When they leave the factory, they are 18 to an 8-ounce package, lined up just so.

Rosie O'Donnell raved about them on her daytime talk show. Mentions surfaced in the films "When Harry Met Sally" and "The First Wives Club."

On the Web, Mallomar fans suggest avoiding the summertime void by freezing a supply. One Web user offers a recipe for Mallomar sticky buns.

The Vermont Country Store, a kitschy mail-order purveyor of all things yesteryear, waxes nostalgic about their "unbeatable taste."

In a Feb. 27, 2001, article, a writer on www.salon.com penned an ode to Mallomar: "The yellow of a cellophane Mallomars wrapper. The yellow of the greatest cookie in the history of the world."

For all the thrill, Nabisco doesn't advertise the Mallomar's return, for that is up to forces greater than any one cookie maker. The date varies each year, according to when the weather cools.

Fans can't decide which of the cookie's three essential elements is best. Some admit to peeling off the graham cracker base and eating that first, then swallowing the rest separately. Others just eat them the traditional way, as the creator of Mallomar probably intended.

Yes, they're fattening, but perhaps not evilly so. Each cookie is 60 calories and contains 2.5 grams of fat, 1.75 grams of which is saturated.

"Shape magazine called them the best cookie for weight-watchers," the helpful Lanuti pointed out.

It's little comfort to Becker, the New York guy caught in the grocery aisle.

"I can walk by the shelf at home and glom one, and then get another for later," he said, and gestured to his waistline. "Look at me. Can't you tell?"